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President’s COVID-19 Lockdown Lift Is Simply Cogent

Feature Article Presidents COVID-19 Lockdown Lift Is Simply Cogent
APR 21, 2020 LISTEN

His head is just as nobly big as mine; perhaps even a little bigger than mine, when one looks at it in terms of height and body weight or mass. We also both think big for our nation. You see, his head may be remarkably bigger than mine because he has all the problems of a whole nation to think about and come up with practicable solutions around the clock. Literally speaking. Which means that at just 76 years young, President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo probably does not sleep any more than five or six hours on most nights. You see, I was also not the least bit disturbed that in deciding to lift the partial COVID-19 actuated or induced lockdown, he had well beforehand, carefully studied and analyzed the data and general trend of the sampling of the approximately 70, 000 tests that had, so far, been conducted across the land.

About my only little grievance here is that I had hoped, in retrospect, that Nana Kwaku had invited at least a couple of the Executive Committee Members of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) for deliberation well before the decision to lift the Coronavirus-induced lockdown was taken; but, of course, I also fully appreciate the inescapable fact that the crackerjack team of medical experts around him, including my PERSCO old fellow boy, Senior Nsiah Asare, the President’s Special Adviser on Health, are bona fide members of the GMA. So, in reality or practically speaking, President Akufo-Addo clearly arrived at his decision with the full-throated input of the foremost bevy of physicians in the country and, very likely, the latter’s compatriots resident outside the country.

You see, what impresses me the most about the President’s decision to lift the three-week COVID-19 lockdown is, of course, the deft and logically brilliant balance between the known and familiar contours of the spread and the tracking of the potentially infected with the absolute and indispensable need to chuck the proverbial baby with the bathwater. The bathwater, of course, being our crystallized knowledge of how best to combat the deadly Wuhan Virus, so-called. I also believe that in spite of all the widely reported and glaringly infelicitous treatment of Ghanaians and other Africans resident in China by Chinese officials, that, indeed, the Beijing Government has generously offered us the kind of experience-based knowledge that our very progressive and visionary leader needs to stem the apocalyptic tide of the COVID-19 Pandemic. This is what the inescapable phenomenon of “Globalization” is clearly about. I will shortly be addressing the wanton abuse and mistreatment of African students in China, but we also need to remember the 500 years of total dehumanization, humiliation and exploitation of Africans right here in the United States and much of Western Europe.

I also remain cautiously optimistic, and have absolutely no qualms or doubts in my mind that the lifting of the partial lockdown in the wake of the emotionally and psychologically traumatic onslaught of the COVID-19 Pandemic, was incontrovertibly guided by the socially responsible, sensitive and morally sensible appreciation for our collective safety and protection as bona fide Ghanaian citizens. And by all means, keep those facial masks well-secured and in place, as well as the other PPE gear in place, even as you step out of the sanctum of your house or place of work and refreshment, Dear Reader. Peace Out!!!

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
April 20, 2020
E-mail: [email protected]

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